Wall of Ice: Cold Front Brings Freezing Temperatures

Usable By: Wizard

Spell Level: 6

School: Evocation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 120 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

Components: V, S, M (A small piece of quartz)

You create a wall of ice on a solid surface within range. You can form it into a hemispherical dome or a sphere with a radius of up to 10 feet, or you can shape a flat surface made up of ten 10-foot-square panels. Each panel must be contiguous with another panel. In any form, the wall is 1 foot thick and lasts for the duration.

If the wall cuts through a creature’s space when it appears, the creature within its area is pushed to one side of the wall and must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 10d6 cold damage, or half as much damage on a successful save.

The wall is an object that can be damaged and thus breached. It has AC 12 and 30 hit points per 10-foot section, and it is vulnerable to fire damage. Reducing a 10-foot section of wall to 0 hit points destroys it and leaves behind a sheet of frigid air in the space the wall occupied. A creature moving through the sheet of frigid air for the first time on a turn must make a Constitution saving throw. That creature takes 5d6 cold damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 7th level or higher, the damage the wall deals when it appears increases by 2d6, and the damage from passing through the sheet of frigid air increases by 1d6, for each slot level above 6th.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Wall of Fire (the baby) is a simple, intuitive wall that is fire. Prismatic Wall (the oldest) is a nonsensical 9th level DM nightmare no sane person should ever cast. The cool, college-bound middle sibling that the parents (designers, in this metaphor) largely ignored is Wall of Ice. Of all the options, Wall of Ice is somehow the most Wall-like of the wall spells, and is completely average in basically all regards.

10d6 cold damage is low for a 6th level spell; a 5th level Fireball hits that mark. Wall of Ice then brings chunky, breakable sections with it, requiring a moderate amount of tracking as friend and foe blast through varying sections over a fight. Adding in 5d6 cold damage to pass through a section cranks the damage up to the “worth it” area, making it so the spell very likely will deal the damage you’re looking for without you needing to put in extra effort. All of this comes around to make a spell not as uniquely powerful or encounter warping as Wall of Force, but delivers on the weird “wall wizard” fantasy D&D seems to adore.

Like other area of effect damage spells, Wall of Ice rewards controlling enemy movement. Entering an area for the first time each turn opens Wall of Ice up to be abused easier than Wall of Fire; like Blade Barrier, you get a decent chunk of damage out of subsequent pushes and pulls. Unlike Blade Barrier, the subsequent 5d6 damage is far less than it’s initial damage, making it often just a fun side effect, and not necessarily a go-to strategy when casting Wall of Ice.

The breakable sections ultimately do a good enough job slowing down forces that it can perform the job of a barricade well enough. Having to spend actions breaking walls instead of dashing can open up extra time for you and your buddies to escape. It isn’t as good at this as Wall of Force, but is substantially better at preventing movement than deterrents like Cloud of Daggers.

Wall of Ice is hard to abuse, but good at its base level. When you want a wall, a Wall of Ice can probably do what you want. It's one of the best damage wall options, partly because it's likely going to get two instances of damage without any major effort from you, the caster. It isn’t the best at being a barricade, but it does the job well enough to function as a barricade in a pinch. If you want a wall that can do it all, this is worth the spell level, and does everything I’d want a wall spell to do.

5e Spells

Wall of Ice: Cold Front Brings Freezing Temperatures